Cleaning products have been developed that dispense a cleaning agent onto the surface being cleaned near the cleaning head of the device. Some such devices dispense gravity fed liquid cleansers and some dispense the cleaner in the form of an aerosol spray. The latter type of these cleaning devices have an aerosol canister (with the cleaning chemical and the propellant) mounted to the device typically between the cleaning head and a handle. The canister can be mounted to a pole to assist in reaching high ceilings or underneath furniture, to reduce straining one's arms, neck and back. Some of these devices also are actuated remotely by a trigger, which keeps the chemical from contacting the skin of the user and also assists in consistent spraying. See e.g. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,679,319, 3,794,217, 4,789,084, 4,886,191 and 5,779,155. The disclosures of these patents are hereby incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein.
Conventional aerosol spraying cleaning devices are usually designed to work with one size of aerosol canister. Increasingly, however, cleansers are sold in various sized canisters. Thus, for one application, cleaning windows for example, the window cleaning agent may be in a canister of a size too large or small to fit into the cleaning device. In this regard, it may be desirable to use smaller canisters for hand-held devices in which the canister is held off the ground or overhead by the user (again as when cleaning windows) to reduce the weight of the device and thereby strain on the user's arm.
A device with an adjustable canister mounting assembly has been developed. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,886,191 discloses a trigger operated device having a pole on which can slide a holder that presses against the bottom cupped end of the canister to clamp it in place. The holder is free to slide along the pole and thus accommodate different sized canisters before it is locked in place. This patent also discloses a simple bolt arrangement that can be threaded at different lengths against the bottom of the canister.
Both of the disclosed techniques use somewhat unsophisticated mechanisms that require significant manipulation to mount the canister to the device. The same is true to remove the canister, which requires the back end holder to be moved, for example by numerous rotations of the bolt, back from the canister sufficiently to allow the cupped back end of the canister to clear the holder. Moreover, the disclosed devices make no provision to assist in rapid adjustment for common canister sizes. Nor do these devices provide away to select which size canisters can be securely retained, which may be desired to ensure that the proper chemical is being dispensed by the device.
Thus, a need exists for a cleaning device with a better solution for mounting the aerosol canister.